The Former Prodigy Unknowingly Crushes Black Dragon’s Fang

As the torrential rain poured down on me, I let out a sigh. With this much rain, even a major fire should be manageable.

I had thought it was not a particularly difficult spell, so I figured I could cast it easily enough, but――

I panicked a little.

This spell required a huge amount of moisture in the atmosphere, but apparently some unknown person had already been holding it in advance, so the casting nearly failed.

In a case like that, the only option was to interfere with magic power and forcibly steal control, but since I am a humble man, I was not sure what to do.

I mean, snatching something away when someone else was about to use it felt a bit wrong…

But after thinking it over, there was a fire, after all. Since this was disaster response, I could not afford to hold back.

So, that being the case, I took it without mercy.

Sorry! Whoever you are! Well, still, thanks to your sacrifice, the fire was suppressed, so please let that be enough!

Man, I am really glad I studied weather magic…

I am glad I studied it in hopes of getting school events canceled by rain because they were such a pain. In the end, I reconsidered and did not use it because I felt bad for my classmates who were looking forward to them, though.

Yep, yep, it really is useful.

At first I thought about using Water Dragoon, but even I thought, no way. That was a wide-area attack spell, so it would have blasted everything away with water pressure. Judging from its power, it definitely would have changed the terrain.

…Well, maybe if it were some third-rate hack who could not even use weather magic――no, even then, that would still be awfully rough work for a working adult.

That would make someone unfit to be a member of society.

Oh! I actually got to say the line I always wanted to say!

I looked for a piece of rubble that seemed like it might serve as a shelter from the rain and sat down beneath it.

At last, maybe I could calm down a little――I leaned my back against the rubble and let out a long breath.

Even I was exhausted today.

Weather magic takes a fair amount out of you, and for the first time in my life, I had actually gotten serious too…

That kind of work-related fatigue was part of it, but more than that, I truly did not understand this whole incident.

Why someone had been trying to kill me, what the man who handed me the red crystal midway had been, why self-proclaimed Varnir and all those impostors had been inside the Black Dragon’s Fang hideout――

It was all resolved in the end, but none of the mysteries rolling around everywhere had actually been solved.

On top of that, Black Dragon’s Fang’s hideout got blown up too, so what was I supposed to do? The self-proclaimed Varnir responsible for it was dead, so I could not make him take responsibility.

Even if I tried to explain what happened, I did not understand the situation, so I could not explain it properly.

It said so in the job-hunting manual, Unrivaled Job Offers.

“A working adult must not speak with only a half-baked understanding. Decisions will be made based on the information you provide. If you say something incorrect, those decisions will also become incorrect. Take proper explanation as your duty. The interviewer will be trying to determine how logically and coherently you can speak.”

…Good grief… I can only talk with a half-baked understanding…

It would also be bad to make some strange report and cause trouble for everyone around me. For the time being, I will keep what happened here a secret known only to me.

…Well, I did not do anything wrong, and I was just caught up in it, anyway…

At that moment, drowsiness came crashing over me.

Half-delirious, I let the words rising up inside me spill from my mouth.

“Arisa, it is over, so I am going home… but I am a little tired, so let me rest. Sorry…”

Arisa’s face floated up in my mind.

Big brother! Do not start trying to slack off right away just because you said that! There, stop lying down immediately!

I let out a small chuckle and muttered softly.

“No, that is not it, today I really, truly did my best… I want you to understand that… I think I managed to be surprisingly professional today…?”

Letting out a small yawn, I drifted off to sleep just like that.

In the torrential rain, Orfred slowly descended from the sky.

Phonic did not understand magic. Phonic was the Meteor Swordsman. He had lived his life swinging a sword and wearing armor. Yet when it came to sensing something off, he was more sensitive than most.

The way that water dragon unraveled was not normal.

“W-what happened, Orfred-sama!? Surely you did not… fail to control your magic――”

Phonic abruptly fell silent.

Orfred said nothing. He merely turned slightly and looked at Phonic with only his right eye. In that eye was a clear and intense emotion.

Phonic felt a stab of pain in his heart.

I asked something I should never have asked!

Panicking, Phonic searched for words.

“U-um, well, that is… er, I do not really understand magic, but… Orfred-sama also fought and seems tired. S-so, making a mistake in controlling magic, th-that does happen, right…?”

“Hmph.”

Reacting only with that, Orfred strode away and left the scene.

That attitude of Orfred’s made Phonic realize a truly unbelievable fact.

(Orfred-sama… failed…!?)

It was a fact he had never seen before.

Then a month passed――

Phonic spent his days so busy they felt as though busyness had been piled on top of busyness and then tripled again. He did not even want to think about his average hours of sleep per day.

Of course he was busy.

Because the Black Dragon’s Fang hideout in the Great Forest had been blown away―― and Eight Star Varnir and his right-hand man Raios were missing.

To deal with the aftermath, Phonic had to process an enormous amount of paperwork.

When he first heard that unbelievable report, the situation was so extreme that Phonic lost his words.

(This is a disaster!)

But there was one man who was even more shaken.

It was Orfred.

“W-what, how, what does this mean…!?”

Orfred trembled all over. Phonic had never seen him like that before.

Naturally.

Black Dragon’s Fang had been rising steadily the whole time. If they simply carried out their work according to the baton Orfred wielded, results followed.

That had continued for nearly thirty years.

And this first failure was a catastrophe on this scale. There was no way he could remain calm.

“My, my Black Dragon’s Fang――who did this!? Who did something like this!?”

It was also the first time Phonic had ever seen Orfred raise his voice this harshly, fury blazing in his eyes.

And――

Varnir’s absence――most likely his death――led to a major problem as well.

It concerned the deals involving Granveil Grass, which Black Dragon’s Fang had treated as top priority. It had been an important contract meant to pave the way for future transactions, but with the disappearance of the man in charge, Varnir, the whole thing collapsed.

“Varnir, that fool…!”

All Orfred could do was spit out those words, loaded with every curse imaginable.

According to something Phonic had secretly heard from the person in charge of accounting, failure to fulfill the contract would apparently incur a massive penalty fee, which had become another painful blow.

“How massive are we talking?”

“Hmm… About a year’s worth of Black Dragon’s Fang’s profits, maybe?”

Without thinking, Phonic pressed a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.

As a result, everything was frantic. On top of that, Orfred was in the foulest mood possible, and his already severe manner of speaking in ordinary times had become unbearable. Every conversation with him felt like it would burn a hole in Phonic’s stomach.

“This business plan is rejected. Double the sales.”

Nothing but the figures were forced on them.

Even when Phonic explained how difficult that would be, Orfred would coolly point out the shallowness of his thinking and the softness of his approach to work. Every conversation with him felt like it would burn a hole in Phonic’s stomach.

After being thoroughly scolded once again today, Phonic left Orfred’s office.

After walking for a while, he was called out to by a fellow Eight Star member, Carmilla of the Crimson Blaze.

“What is wrong with you? Your face looks dead.”

“…It is not that bad.”

“People who are not that bad do not usually sigh, do they?”

Carmilla chuckled.

Phonic reflexively covered his mouth. After saying “not that bad,” he had let out a breath. Completely unconsciously.

“It is about Orfred-sama, right?”

“…N-no…”

“Oh, come on. Nobody is listening.”

Sure enough, there was no one in the corridor besides Phonic and her.

“…I do not want to complain, but even I have gotten exhausted at this point…”

Under normal circumstances, Phonic would never have spoken those words aloud. But the crushing workload and the pressure from Orfred had worn him down.

“I know, I know. It was tough before too, but lately it has been really awful, has it not, Orfred-sama!”

“Yeah, seriously…”

“Why not at least vent a little? Out of consideration between fellow Eight Stars, I would not mind listening.”

“…Maybe I really will take you up on that…”

“Then it is settled. Let us go out for drinks sometime, like in the old days.”

“…Yeah, let us.”

A faintly nostalgic feeling came over Phonic. He and Carmilla had joined at the same time, so when they were younger, they used to go drinking together with the others all the time.

“I will contact you once I decide on a place.”

With that, Carmilla left, trailing behind her laughter.

Watching her back as she went, Phonic realized that he was unexpectedly looking forward to that day.

“So, venting, huh…”

He was grateful that, as a fellow Eight Star, he had a comrade who would share his hardships.

Phonic felt a little vitality return to the spirit that had started to wither.

“I will keep going…”

His stomach still hurt, but his respect for Orfred and his attachment to Black Dragon’s Fang had not disappeared yet. He still had comrades he could trust.

Phonic lifted his head and walked on.